The Universal Cat: How Artists Have Drawn Felines for 30,000 Years

There’s an old joke among art students: “If you can’t draw hands, just hide them behind the back. And if you can’t draw feet, just crop the picture.” Anyone who has tried to draw seriously knows why the joke stings—hands and feet are some of the most dreaded subjects in figure drawing. Even seasoned artists …

Halloween doesn’t have to be expensive. With just paper, scissors, glue, and a little imagination, you can conjure up bats, black cats, haunted houses, and all the spooky icons of October 31. Paper crafts have been a part of Halloween celebrations for over a century—classrooms and community halls once filled with hand-cut silhouettes, paper masks, …

“Yellow is the sun on your palette—handle it wrong, and you’ll turn light into mud.” The Black Hole Problem Every beginner tries it: you want a darker yellow, so you add black. And what happens? Instead of a golden sunset or warm ochre, you get a queasy olive green. Why? Because black paint usually contains …

“Purple is the diva of the color world—expensive, rare, and notoriously hard to get right.” Why Purple is So Difficult If you’ve ever tried mixing purple with paints, you probably discovered one of art’s great disappointments: instead of a radiant violet, you get a muddy maroon. The culprit? Pigments don’t play nice. In theory, purple …

“The grass really is greener when you mix it yourself.” The Curse of Tube Green There’s a problem every painter runs into: open a tube of ready-made green and you’ll either get the Hulk’s skin tone or the chemical glow of antifreeze. It’s not that pigments like Viridian or Phthalo are bad—on the contrary, they’re …

Looking for a creative way to engage young artists? Pointillism is a fun and approachable art technique that uses dots to build vibrant images. Not only does it spark imagination, but it also helps develop patience, concentration, and fine motor skills. Here are 10 simple pointillism art projects that are perfect for kids at home …

Every painting begins with color, but for beginners, mixing paints often feels like a riddle with too many answers. Why does red and blue sometimes yield a luminous violet, and at other times, only a dull brown? How do artists prevent their palettes from collapsing into a uniform gray mass? The key lies in understanding …

Portraits are more than likenesses. They are acts of interpretation, moments in which the artist selects gestures, expressions, and settings to suggest the sitter’s inner life. Norbert Schneider, in The Art of the Portrait, emphasizes that the genre emerged in the Renaissance as a way for individuals to project not only appearance but also social …

Throughout the history of art, the female figure has occupied a central place as both subject and symbol. From the earliest fertility figurines of prehistory to the carefully rendered sketches of modern life-drawing studios, artists have continually returned to the body of the woman as a site of meaning, beauty, and creativity. Unlike other recurring …

The art of portraiture underwent a radical transformation in the fifteenth century, particularly in Northern Europe, where the work of Jan van Eyck marked a new chapter in the history of painting. Foundations of Renaissance Portraiture Portraiture, while practiced in antiquity and the Middle Ages, had largely been subordinated to religious and symbolic concerns. Medieval …